


a catalog of non-definitive acts

by ohallows



Series: inside your head the sound of glass [1]
Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, M/M, Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-27 02:59:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15676665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohallows/pseuds/ohallows
Summary: And then he says your name, and for the first time ever it doesn’t feel like embers are clawing their way up your throat. You stare at him as he talks, mumbling about how it’s only fair that he gets to use your name if you’re going to use his, and Misaki is a girls name anyway, can’t you call him Yata, and then he finally shuts up when he notices you staring. His cheeks burn red as he trails off, before erupting into embarrassed chatter about how you need to participate in the conversation and to stop staring at him.





	a catalog of non-definitive acts

**Author's Note:**

> hey enjoy my love letter to fushimi! first k project fic and deffo not the last!
> 
> so this is mainly just a mix of a vent fic and an introspective character study for fushimi bc even tho he's not one of my fave characters hes one of the most fascinating characters in K (can u say... self-destructive as fuck). so iw wanted to do a little deep dive into saru and see what i could pull off. i deffo copped out and lost inspo around 3/4 of the way through this fic so while i'm super proud of some parts i was just totally blocked for others but still wanted to get this out there for y'all. (title is from litany in which certain things are crossed out 
> 
> i tried to keep this as close to canon as possible which is why the fushimi/yata is only implied. tatara/mikoto is also implied but v minorly
> 
> hope y'all enjoy! comments are always welcome (i also wrote this on my phone and its not betaed so. all mistakes, yada yada)

You are 9 years old when you realize how much you hate your name, how much it curls up inside you and starts to fester worse and worse with each person who says it. Your.... _that man_ says it mockingly, sadistic glee dripping from his lips as he calls you his little monkey, until the only thing you can associate with ‘saruhiko’ is pain and fear and the knowledge that you’re never going to escape this. He calls you it while he laughs, tormenting you and tormenting you even as you beg for it to stop.

He never was much of a father anyway. You hide in your room, bolt the door shut, and hope that he doesn’t come looking for you. And then you hear your name, quiet but growing louder, a soft ‘Saruhiko... come out and play...’ followed by footsteps that stop right outside your door. You cower under your sheets, face pressed against your knees as you curl up into a tight ball, as though that can protect you from him. But you’re nine. Maybe it will work this time, you don’t know.

Surprisingly, the steps fade away, and even then you refuse to let out a sigh of relief. He might hear you if you do, through the thick wooden door and the walls of the house. He always seems to be able to hear you.

For five minutes you barely breathe, until you finally hear the front door open and shut. You don’t move though, even though you finally let yourself breathe normally. You’ve fallen for this trick before, but never again. The minute hand on your clock ticks by agonizingly slowly, but with each jump it makes you feel your body begin to loosen up.

Ten minutes pass and you finally peek out from the cage of your arms and glance at the door. The house is silent around you as you pad to the door, pushing aside the desk you’d moved in front of it, unlocking the door as quietly as you can. Your stomach rumbles (you don’t remember the last time you’d eaten, that man was in the kitchen all night and you forgot to bring snacks up to your room again) and you wrap your arms around your midsection as though that will muffle the sound. For one long, painful, anxious minute you stare around, waiting for his shadow to crawl along the wall, reaching a hand out to you with a sinister smile on his face.

But no one comes. Slowly your heart rate decreases to a steady beat and you keep moving, heading for the kitchen where you know you can get a snack.

You don’t know how long that man will be gone, but you’ve got the art of grabbing and running down to a science because you had to. One bag of chips that he’ll never notice is missing and a piece of bread from a loaf he never counts is all you need. You take a risk and grab a water bottle from the fridge, because if you grab it now you can fill it up at school and bring it home and never have to grab one again.

You head upstairs silently, and lock the door carefully behind you. You push a desk in front of it and stand there, staring, before going and sitting on your bed under the covers, pulling up the <jungle> server as you escape into the tech.

 

—

 

You’re still young, only 12 years old, when you meet the boy who changes everything. You don’t know that yet, because you spend most of your time being annoyed at his endless energy, his optimism, the way he refuses to let anything affect him. Even after you basically tell him to fuck off, he still comes around, still pokes around and grabs your shoulder and tugs your shirtsleeve and it’s new, because your mother refused to touch you at all and your father has claws, and none of your classmates ever wanted to get close.

But this kid, this weird dope who peers over the edge of the bathroom stall and watches you play a game until you finally let him in through the door, who goes along with your ideas and stands up for you to bullies, who does all the things that a friend would do for another friend, even after you ignore him and try to leave him behind, refuses to give up. And maybe that’s why you let him in, that day. He was the only one who cared enough to actually try, to not take no for an answer.

It’s. It’s something, and you’re not sure what, but there’s something there now that wasn’t there before, and if you were smarter back then, less lonely, maybe you would have recognized it for what it was and squashed it then and there, but you were, so you didn’t.

You didn’t know when you met him just how much Misaki Yata was going to change your life.

 

—

 

Aya is an annoying part of what you guess you should be calling your friendgroup, even though it’s you and Yata and she just seems to worm her way in, flirt with him (which leaves you seeing red for reasons you really don’t want to think about), and then drag you both into her crazy ideas.

You’re not 100% certain who’s idea it was, but one night finds you sneaking out of your house and hopping on the back of Yata’s bike as you head for the roof where you can best see the blimp. There are rumors atop of rumors being passed around at school, about how if you catch the blimp you can escape, you can remake yourself. You never put much stock in rumors, but Yata is laughing as the two of you ride toward the building and there’s a small part of you desperately whispering ‘maybe’ that you try very hard to ignore.

You click your tongue as Yata screeches to a stop, pressing your hands against his back for some leverage so you don’t go flying into him.

The night passes, as it does. Aya uses an app to send a light to the blimp, and when you glance over at Yata he’s staring up at the stars, enraptured. You feel something start to take shape in your chest and for once you let it sit there, you don’t strangle it with what little strength you have left.

The blimp comes, and goes, and then you’re back on the bike, Yata’s voice yelling as he promises to catch the blimp. With two extra people on the bike, he’s not even going half as fast as he could, and they all watch the blimp slowly, slowly drift out of sight and disappear behind the clouds. The bike rolls to a stop as Yata pants, bent over with heaving gasps as he tries to catch his breath. Your hand reaches out and almost, almost touches his shoulder in a facsimile of concern, but you pull back at the last second.

You can feel Aya’s eyes on you and ignore it, hand clenched in a fist at your side once more. Yata starts apologizing, because he’s an idiot who really thought that he would be able to catch a blimp hundreds of feet in the air with a cheap bike, and you hit him on the side of the head. He immediately switches tacks, complaining about how his head hurts now and how you’re going to have to pedal now, which erupts into a full-on bicker session that Aya watches thoughtfully.

You don’t want to know what she’s thinking,

because you know your cousin and she’s a little bit more like that man than she’d like to believe, so you shut up and clamber back onto the bike as Yata pushes off and rides away, carrying you and Aya back to your houses.

What you don’t allow yourself to acknowledge is how much you wanted Yata to do it, how much you wanted him to be able to catch the blimp even though it was so far beyond the realm of reality that it could never happen. Because what if the rumors were true? What if you could escape? But it’s okay, you aren’t disappointed, because you were never going to get there anyway, and any hope you had of escaping died long ago with your ant farm.

 

—

 

You’re 13 when everything almost ends one day. You don’t remember a lot of it, because you had a fever and were so scared of what could have happened that you acted on instinct. But Misaki has told the story enough times that you remember the gist of it by now.

Any time you’d been sick, you’d bear with it alone and wait for the fever to pass, forcing it out of your system with medication and the fear that being bedridden would lead to that man coming up with new ways to torture you when you couldn’t escape. You never cared about missing school, you were too smart for them anyway, and would easily catch up on any work as you ignored the teachers concern because it wouldn’t change anything anyway.

You thought he was a hallucination when he actually showed up in your bedroom. He started talking loudly about how you needed to take care of yourself, and you rubbed your red eyes and stared at him blearily, trying to make sense of the entire situation.

You register Misaki saying that he’s going to cook you something and then the room becomes quiet as he leaves. Everything is still a little hazy to you, and you honestly aren’t sure if you’re hallucinating or not, so you turn back over and bury yourself under the covers, sniffing and coughing.

Time passes (you think) but you aren’t sure how fast. Your head is still burning up and you want to fall back asleep but if you’re not hallucinating, you need to see him. Because he’s the only one who’s ever cared enough to push past the walls you built.

And then you hear that man’s voice calling up the stairs, and you don’t even know what he’s saying because of the fever, but your mind thinks _Misaki_  and you’re on your feet and racing down to the kitchen faster than you thought possible, because if Misaki is here and that man has come home... you can’t risk Misaki just becoming another broken thing, you can’t risk him only looking at you with pity in his eyes.

You slide into the doorway and pant, sweating, as you see Misaki standing in your kitchen, behind your father.

It’s your worst nightmare come true. You stare at that man with hate in your eyes, because now he knows another one of your weaknesses, and you’re mad at yourself because you should have told Misaki to leave while he still could, because you forgot your father comes home early on these days. And it’s your fault that Misaki is standing there looking just short of terrified, so you do the only thing you can.

Breaking eye contact with that man is dangerous, because it just leaves him open to attack, but you do anyway because you have to, because you have to grab Misaki and get him out of there. You move too quickly, and you can hear that man laughing at you, but you grit your teeth and grip Misaki’s arm too tightly, tight enough that he calls out in pain, and drag him out of the kitchen. You tug him through the house until you reach the front door, and push him outside.

He looks almost offended, but you can’t care about that now, you don’t have time for explanations, you just need him to get as far away as possible and never come back to your house. You wonder, as he stands there looking confused and hurt, if this was it. Your last strike before he turns tail and runs for the hills. If you were in his position, you would.

You would.

He doesn’t.

You bring him his broken umbrella and sodden books the next day, because that man hadn’t even cared that they weren’t yours, he just wanted to send a message. Misaki doesn’t even question it, which is a first for him, just takes the bag and makes a joke that falls flat and you breathe out a sigh of relief, because maybe this wasn’t your last strike after al.

 

—

 

You and Misaki spend a lot of time on the roof of the school, cutting class because you think it’s worthless. You lay up there and stare at the sky, watch clouds pass by, and listen as Misaki tells stories about his family, his two younger siblings, the kids in the one class you two aren’t in together...

And then he says your name, and for the first time ever it doesn’t feel like embers are clawing their way up your throat. You stare at him as he talks, mumbling about how it’s only fair that he gets to use your name if you’re going to use his, and Misaki is a girls name anyway, can’t you call him Yata, and then he finally shuts up when he notices you staring. His cheeks burn red as he trails off, before erupting into embarrassed chatter about how you need to participate in the conversation and to stop staring at him.

You chuckle a little bit and lean back, laying down on the roof of the school with him next to you. Misaki gets back into the groove after a moment, rambling on and on while you pepper in little noises of agreement here and there. He says your name again, and then again, and again, and each time the knot in your chest loosens up a little more, the fire that had blackened your soul begins to lift.

 

—

 

When you’re 14 you both graduate middle school and move out of your houses. It’s a shitty apartment in the middle of downtown Shizume, and the landlord almost refused to let you rent there until you’d presented him with the first three months rent and they reluctantly agreed to rent you the room. Honestly, you’re a little shocked it worked at all - you’re both basically children, and even though you make a decent amount of money doing odd jobs for people on the jungle server, Misaki seems unable to actually hold anything down for any period of time. But you have the room, and even though it’s sparse and dimly lit, it’s one more thing that you can call ‘yours.’

Misaki claims the bottom bunk and you tease him for being afraid of heights, which devolves into one of your typical shouting matches that don’t really mean anything.

But that night, you lie there quietly, and feel Misaki’s fingers press against the underside of the thin mattress you’re sleeping on. Your heart speeds up, you’re not sure why, but you press your fingers back against his and all that’s blocking you from holding hands is a thin mattress and a healthy scoop of plausible deniability.

You fall asleep like this, and even though you know Misaki’s hands fall back to his sides during the night you swear you can still feel them pressing against yours, a phantom warmth.

You just didn’t realize that phantom was all it was ever going to be.

 

—

 

It’s a few weeks later when you and Misaki are sitting out in the sun, sharing a cola between the both of you because you didn’t want to waste money on another, that you meet the people that end up ruining everything.

When the bottle comes flying back at you on flame, your heart stops. Misaki squawks and you just look up, eyes tracing the man with the flame-red hair staring at you both.

The Red Monster. He’s... he’s less than you expected. You were expecting the equivalent of an experienced mob boss, with a whole team of people with scars and stories to tell. Not a twenty-year old who doesn’t speak, just turns and walks away and lets his second-in-command invite you to HOMRA for a chance to prove yourselves. Everyone in the clan seems only a little bit older than yourself and Misaki, but the flame is still burning on the ground and you can’t stop staring at it enough to notice anything else about them.

They’re gone as soon as they appear, strutting away with bats carelessly slung over their shoulders.

You don’t speak first. Misaki finally lets out a breath, turning to you with wide eyes and babbling some inane nonsense about magic and kings and gangs and power. The fire licks along the edges of the glass bottle as it melts into the pavement, and it’s not until the flames are completely burnt out and dead that you feel your shoulders untense.

You’ve always hated fire.

 

—

 

Misaki calls you amazing and your entire brain... short-circuits. Your hand twitches on the mouse, not enough for him to notice. And it’s new, because teachers would compliment your skill before they realized just how much you didn’t care to try, and you never had friends to tell you that before.

But there’s something about Misaki saying that you’re amazing, and the smile on his face as he says it, and the warmth of his hand on your arm, that makes it something you never want to forget.

It’s terrifying.

You don’t know when Misaki became something you couldn’t bear to lose. It might have been back when you met, when he peered over the side of the bathroom wall and stared down at you, playing on the <jungle> servers. But you don’t think so. Sometimes, you wonder if it’s that time you got sick, and voluntarily ran toward Niki for the first time. Because otherwise Misaki would get hurt. But that might not be it, either, because even though you didn’t want Misaki to be caught in the middle you still aren’t sure how much of that was the shame you felt for letting that man treat you that way. The one that you think it is is when he looked at you with stars in his eyes and told you how amazing you were, how cool you were. How you were going to topple the entire fucking world together, two fifteen year old kids who didn’t even get a high school diploma.

You were idiots back then. You’re still idiots, but now you’re idiots who know that the world isn’t going to make sense unless you force it to, and your small world is the only place you can trust.

Well. You knew that. You thought Misaki did too, but you didn’t even realize he wanted, needed more, not until it was too late. It’s understandable, how you managed to overlook it, because Misaki was your small little world, him and the broken kotatsu and the shitty apartment with the bunk bed and no heat in the winter, that was yours and you thought it was enough to be his too.

Eventually you learn you were wrong.

 

—

 

You’re 16 and it’s all about to come to a head. The plans you’ve put together for years now, the dreams you’ve held in your head, the last big move you wanted to make while you still could.

You’re going to topple the fucking world. And you’re going to use <jungle> to do it. The plan is your idea, but you were too stupid and too cocky to even think it was anything short of foolproof, and that becomes your downfall. You plan to strike at the <jungle> party harassing the Red Monster at Bar HOMRA, when whoever runs <jungle> is distracted by the events happening a few blocks over from your apartment.

Stupid. So, so fucking stupid. Misaki is at the party and you’re sitting in your small world, and then the leader of <jungle> shows up, and then you know that Misaki is in more danger than you ever could have thought.

You sprint over to bar HOMRA, because Misaki isn’t answering his phone, and your lungs burn as you race there.

Finding Misaki in the crowd is easier than you expect, and then both of you are running, getting out of the crowd because the mission has changed and you two are the new targets.

You fall. Misaki turns around and the fear on his face terrifies you as you see his eyes widen at the crowd behind you.

That’s when the fire comes. Cascading over you, billowing out as it pushes back the wave of fireworks beginning to surround you. You feel the heat on your face and sink to your knees, as the Red Monster closes his eyes and lets his flames destroy.

Misaki is screaming somewhere but you can’t make out any of his words, mind racing as you hear that man’s cackle in the crackle of the flames. You think you pass out, but you aren’t sure.

All you know is fire, and fear.

And then there’s a cool hand pressed to your forehead, and an arm helping to support you as your breathing starts to settle down and you lose the adrenaline high.

The last thing you remember before passing out is a friendly voice telling you that you’ll be okay, and Misaki’s arms wrapping around you tightly as he presses his shaking frame against yours, forehead tucked desperately into the crook of your neck.

 

—

 

You’re 16 when your father finally dies. Now, Misaki is the only person who will call you Saruhiko, there’s nothing else to be afraid of. Misaki doesn’t completely understand the relationship you had with that man, and he probably never will, but he’s at least tactful enough to let you have your space as you deal with this new reality.

You don’t much care that he’s dead. There’s no depression. No concern. A muted sense of relief. But the strongest thing you feel is vindicated. He’s gone, and he can’t hurt you anymore, and god you hope he suffered in his final moments. Even just a fraction of the hell he put you through would be enough for you to be satisfied.

You don’t remember when you grabbed his collar and started shaking, but you remember Misaki pulling you off and staring at you with that concerned look in his eyes. It’s hard to look back at him, because you’re scared of what he might find in your eyes, and that that might be the thing that finally turns him, finally makes him leave you behind.

That man is left in the off-white hospital room for your mother (if she can even be called that) to deal with, because you just don’t care. You would leave that man to rot anywhere, so she’ll have to handle the arrangements. Whatever she decides, you won’t be there. He’s dead and he doesn’t have any sort of hold on you anymore, and nothing your mother says will change that.

For the first time in your life, you’re truly free. You and Misaki head back to your small world and you lay in your bed, watching Misaki as he cooks something for dinner, and systematically shutting down the thoughts inside your head.

That man had access to your head for long enough - you spend some quality time tearing up all of your memories of him and shove them to the back of your brain. He doesn’t deserve to have even one more thought directed toward him.

You smile when Misaki calls for dinner, and don’t even complain about the broken kotatsu taking up the entire space of the flat for once. He laughs when you still refuse to eat your veggies and pokes your lips with the chopsticks until you relent.

It feels so normal. How were you supposed to know that it wouldn’t last?

 

—

 

You’re still 16 when you trail along after Misaki, pledging your lives to a gang that deals in fire and anger. You grip Mikoto‘s hand and the fire burns your chest. You gasp but you don’t let go, and at your side you see Misaki grinning through the pain. It’s over as quickly as it began, and you both immediately pull aside the collar of your shirts where the Homura insignia has burned its way into your skin. Misaki’s is in the same place, and he laughs as he presses a fist to your mark. You do the same in return, feeling a spark of life pass through your fist as it touches his skin.

Kusanagi mentions how unusual that is, for two people to have the same mark show up in identical locations. Tatara laughs at the bar, grabbing Mikoto’s arm as he points to his shoulder. ‘We have the same mark too!’ he says, grinning at them both. Kusanagi shakes his head fondly, whacking Tatara on the back of the head lightly. Tatara winces in pain and leans back, resting against Mikoto’s arm as the Red King takes another drag of his cigarette.

He might be kidding, you’re not sure (does the Red Monster have the same tattoo as his clansmen, anyway?), but there’s no mistaking Kusanagi’s eye roll and the slight soft smile that creeps across Mikoto’s face for a millisecond before it falls back into his standard emotionless stare.

Tatara Totsuka, even then, was an enigma and you still aren’t quite sure what to make of him, because even though he protected you and Yata and constantly wanted to pull you farther into HOMRA, he had a cold side (it’s something you’re more than a little familiar with, anyway).

You ignore his outburst, because honestly anything in that bar that doesn’t revolve around Misaki is useless information anyway, and focus instead on the feel of Misaki’s skin against your knuckles, knuckles against your skin. Marks in the same spot - if it really is as rare as Kusanagi says, you might just be willing to put some stock into the significance.

You’ve never much believed in soulmates; if soulmates existed, your parents would be happy and you wouldn’t have grown up with a sociopath for a father. But looking at Misaki’s tattoo, a mirror image of your own, you can’t help but wonder maybe, maybe.

 

—

 

When you and Misaki fight side by side, it’s like watching two partners who are so in sync they must be communicating telepathically. Other Homura members compliment both of your skills, and give you more and more complicated missions to carry out. You both might be the two youngest members of Homura but you rise through the ranks quickly. Misaki starts to spend more time at the bar, and you follow along because your apartment is cold without Misaki there to share the heat with.

Sometimes, you spend the night, curled up on Kusanagi’s bed upstairs that he saves for the members who get too drunk to walk home. Misaki always falls asleep before you, and you stare at his hair falling over his eyes and reach out with a hand, brushing them away before almost flinching back, terrified that he’ll wake up.

He never does. You don’t even know what you would say if he did.

In the mornings, Tatara and Mikoto are the last to rise, stumbling down together as they collapse on the bar and beg Kusanagi for some coffee and food. Or, well, Tatara begs - Mikoto lights a cigarette and grabs food off of Tatara’s plate before Kusanagi brings him his own.

Sometimes, you watch how they interact and feel Mikoto’ eyes on you. It makes you look away, but you can’t hide the weird yearning in your chest that you feel when you look at Misaki for the rest of the day.

Soon, you stop sleeping at HOMRA. It’s too confusing, and you hate confusing. Misaki doesn’t come home every day, and your apartment remains cold and quiet as you play away on the <jungle> server.

It’s one of those days when the name that shows up on the other player’s team makes your heart race and your breathing speed up. In no time at all, your computer is unplugged and you’re backed up against the wall, staring with a dull sense of horror at the dark monitor.

Because you just saw your dead father’s name.

 

—

 

One day Kusanagi takes you along to a King’s meeting. You don’t know why he asks you to come with him, but you shrug it off after Misaki starts talking about how cool it is, and how cool you are, Saru, and you really hate how easy it is for him to influence your decisions. On the way to the meeting Kusanagi gives you a few pointers, and only your begrudging respect for the man stops you from giving snarky answers to his advice.

The Blue King, just like when you met the Red Monster, is not what you expected. This guy can only be in his late 20s, but he’s still commanding an entire squadron of soldiers who have an undying sense of loyalty to him and listen to his every command. Kusanagi does most (all) of the talking, and you stare into the distance as your right hand absently tugs at a loose string within the sleeve.

You pay attention, though, when Munakata begins talking about wanting a hidden weapons user. Kusanagi tenses up too, and you refrain from letting one of the knives in your holster slip into your hand as you shrink in on yourself, as though making yourself a smaller target would ever be able to escape his piercing gaze.

The both of you are able to leave without any trouble, although you can tell that Kusanagi is on edge, and that doesn’t help your own mood. You aren’t - you aren’t used to being recruited, to being asked for by name, and it’s not something you particularly care for. It takes you a moment before you realize that Kusanagi has been talking for who knows how long, some reassuring bullshit about how they aren’t going to trade him to the Blue King. You’re grateful (you think) but you don’t show it, instead opting to stare out the window and watch as the show clouds pass you there.

When he doesn’t get a response, Kusanagi just sighs. The rest of the ride passes in silence.

The entire landscape of your life might demonstrate why you aren’t naturally chatty, but you didn’t answer Kusanagi for another reason. Because if you did answer you might have said something you both regretted. 

Because if you spoke, you might have asked if it was actually possible to transfer clans. And Kusanagi is smart, you don’t need him to start drawing connections. You’re starting to understand that he’s grooming you to take over his role in the clan, and as much as you don’t want to ever play liege to Mikoto you don’t want to alienate Kusanagi before you have the chance to really get the measure of him.

So you stay silent, brooding as you stare at the dark highway passing by.

 

—

 

When you’re 17, you hear the voice again. ‘Saruhiko’, followed by a sharp cackle of laughter. The skin on the back of your neck crawls as you turn around, expecting to see that man standing behind you, hand reaching for a knife at your side. Flames lick up your arm even though no one stands behind you and you’re all alone in your small world.

The fire is hotter than it normally is, and if you didn’t know better you’d think it was trying to burn you. You see a shadow in the corner of the room and silently, so silently sneak down the ladder of your bunk, expecting to hear the jangle of chains disguised as jewelry. The shadow moves to the door and you leap, catching a flash of black hair, knife in hand.

You won’t be weak anymore.

A shout comes from the man under you and you blink back to yourself, recognizing one of the twins that Homura has rescued recently. Around the kotatsu, other members of Homura are waking up and staring at you in confusion. You don’t remember any of them being there in the first place.

The feel of someone’s hand on your arm brings you back. You glance down and Misaki is trying to pull your hand (knife and all) away from Minato’s neck. Slowly, slowly you let him, but you refuse to let go of the knife. You can barley register Misaki speaking to you, asking you questions and trying to get your muscles to stop being locked in place.

It’s easy to ignore him. You stand up and mutter something, you aren’t sure what, but it seems to piss him off, so you win, you guess. Everyone is still muttering under their breath, but let them talk, you never cared what other people thought of you anyway. Closing your eyes, you climb back up into the top bunk, turning to face the wall and ignoring Misaki’s questioning eyes on your back.

You know what you heard. You know what you saw. The only question is how the fuck was it even possible.

 

—

 

The Blue King tells you that you have a virus, and you only just hold back a sarcastic retort about how you haven’t been sick in years before you start to actually realize what he means. Your eyes track back toward your computer, dimly lit up on the <jungle> loading screen, filling the room with a sickly green light.

It was never your father. He’s dead, in the ground, and you viciously hope that maggots have already started to eat his body, but he’s not back, and he doesn’t have any power over you anymore. It doesn’t take you long to discover the true culprit, and there’s a weird twinge in your chest when you discover it’s Aya, and remember how she would smile around Misaki and grab him and tug him around only for him to turn back to you and subtly motion for help.

You refuse to let her see how much she affected you, and that’s when everything starts to go bad. Because the Green King himself is staring back at you from the screen, and for the first time in a while you feel oddly stripped. His avatar is nothing more than a blank stick figure, and yet it feels like he can reach through the screen and grab you. You don’t move, trying to think strategically, because while the Green King says he doesn’t mean any harm, it’s a bit hard for you to take him at his word. You were born into liars and thieves, you know how to recognize someone for what they truly are.

What you really hate about the whole situation is that the Blue King shows up to save you, and everything that comes after breaks your small world to infinitesimal, unrecoverable pieces.

Munakata tells you to make a decision, and you do, god, you do, and the entire time you refuse to look back at the small apartment you share with Misaki as you smell burning ash on the horizon.

 

—

 

When Mikoto shows up you freeze, because you’ve heard rumors about the things that gangs do to traitors, and you remember the first time you truly saw him, with flames rolling across his entire being as he let loose a fraction of his power. But he just stands there, staring daggers at the Blue King, not making one move toward you.

It’s a standoff, you realize, as they chat casually about the situation, and slowly turn to face you. You glance between the two, and where Munakata looks cold and calculating, Mikoto looks bored. As though he couldn’t care less about your decision; and you’re sure he doesn’t. Why would he need to?

You’re confused when Munakata issues an ultimatum. Because you can see Misaki’s face in your mind, looking quiet and sad each time you’ve snapped at him recently, and how amazed he was with you when you told him about the <jungle> plan or fixed the kotatsu, but then you see him giving the same look to Mikoto, and your fists clench.

And then Mikoto turns around. And leaves.

You stare after him, almost shocked, because you still hadn’t given an answer. But Munakata looks at you, and smirks, and you glance down at where your one foot has decided to step toward Munakata.

Mikoto said it was your choice. You still don’t know what you want to choose, because half of your universe is still back at HOMRA, but maybe your brain knows better than your heart that even though he’s half of your universe, you aren’t half of his anymore.

Munakata turns around and leaves, and you watch him walk away into the dark as he tells you to show up to the Scepter 4 barracks on Monday. Two days from then.

You get two days to erase your small world from existence.

 

—

 

You don’t find Misaki; he finds you. After Anna asked for final messages and you finally got her to leave, he comes riding in without a care for the world, skateboard on fire as he stares and yells at you because all of your stuff is missing. You know where it is, and he doesn’t, and for the first time you feel like you have some power again as he stares at you with so much worry in his eyes.

You tell him you’re going to the Blues and he, predictably, starts to lose composure. He yells and you close your eyes and relish in it, because this is the longest he’s looked at you for in a long time, and it finally feels like he’s paying attention again.

But. Slowly he loses steam and looks down, and his fist presses against your skin, warm and soft and small and his knuckles tremble as they brush against your tattoo. There are tears on Misaki’s face and it startles you for a second, because it feels like there’s a crater in your chest that you’ve never been able to escape from but he’s the one who’s able to show what he’s feeling.

Without thinking too much about it (a first for you), you shove him away and light the tips of your fingers on fire and have to hold back a laugh at Misaki’s horrified expression as you slowly, so slowly drag your fingers across the Homura tattoo. It burns your skin, and the scent of melted flesh fills your senses as you stare up at the sky and keep smiling, even as tears fill your eyes.

It hurts more than anything you’ve ever done before, and you know that your hands are trembling, but your mind is clear and you will never regret doing this. Now you’re in power again, watching Misaki as his face contorts ino different emotions, pain and fear and regret and sadness and anger before finally settling on hatred.

He says he’ll kill you and you grin, because if he was never going to love you anyway this is just as good, if not better, because people can fall out of love but you know he’ll never forgive you for this and he’ll never forget. With one deft stroke you ensure that he’ll keep looking at you, and it doesn’t even matter that he’ll never call you amazing again.

Does it?

 

—

 

You hear the beeping of an alarm and groan, turning over and holding your hands over your ear. The beeping continues, incessantly, and you feel the sound pounding into your head. You hiss Misaki’s name, because if he doesn’t get up now he’ll be late for work, and then you’ll have to deal with him panicking all morning as he races around and -

There’s no sound from the lower bunk. Misaki may have stayed over at the bar again, he’s been doing that more and more often, expanding your small little world into something you never wanted it to be. But that beeping still isn’t stopping, and you finally open your eyes and -

Unfamiliar. You glance around the room slowly as you start to get your bearings and the memories from last night filter into your sleep-deprived brain. Carefully, you peer over the side of the bunk bed, confused and resigned to find the bottom bunk empty.

You’re in the Blue’s barracks, in a single room that Munakata agreed to give you. Too late, you feel your grip on the sheets slipping, and the next thing you know you’re tumbling to the floor, landing painfully on your back as you try to decide between lying there forever and following the Blue King’s commands.

It might not do to make a bad impression on day one. Not like anyone even told you that you had to be up at this godforsaken hour.

Grumpy and tired, you get up and change and do your hair, because this might be a new start but you don’t intend on forming any sort of relationships built to last; you’ve done that before and look how well that turned out. And you don’t want people asking questions on your first day.

You stare at yourself in the mirror, and you can only just see the tattoo, burnt and distorted, peeking out from your collar. A shiver runs down your back and you close your eyes, before silently doing up another one of your buttons, hiding the tattoo from your eyes. You don’t need to be reminded of it anymore, and you don’t want to be.

It never meant anything to you in the first place.

 

—

 

After a few weeks you think that the left and right hands of Homura are conspiring against you. You’ve run into Kusanagi a grand total of three times since you defected and joined the Blues, and each time he makes sure to grab your attention with a wink. Even when you turn away he catches up to you and walks casually next to you, cigarette sticking out of his mouth as he strolls along.

It’s innocuous comments at first - asking about how the Blues food is compared to his, how the dorms are, what his clansmen are like. At first you think he’s trying to gather intel but the questions he asks means nothing. It escalates later, asking if you’d heard from Misaki, because no one else has, or if you ever trusted him (stupid question, him and Tatara were the only two from Homura you ever trusted). You usually answer with a typical click of your tongue and try walking faster.

Whatever Kusanagi pulls, Tatara is worse. He somehow finds you in the oddest of places; the stable at the Scepter4 complex, walking to get groceries at a store far from HOMRA, in a park that you know he’s never frequented. He always has Anna with him, almost like he’s using her as a shield from your shitty, acerbic comments that Kusanagi gets.

He doesn’t usually ask you questions. But he talks, and everything he says somehow includes details about Misaki, as though you still care. He tells you about how Misaki has been eating well, and the drug kingpin they took down together the week before, and the cute girls that made Misaki pass out when they came into the bar; and it’s so much worse than Kusanagi’s inane questions and prodding.

You remember Tatara once said that he was cold. You weren’t supposed to hear, you were just upstairs looking for something for Kusanagi when you heard Mikoto and Tatara’s hushed whispers from a room over. It wasnt a conversation you wanted to hear, so you left before you could hear anything else, headed back downstairs to where Misaki was entertaining everyone else in the bar and still not looking at you.

Still, his incessant interaction is annoying, but you can’t find it in yourself to force him to stop because there’s a dark part of yourself that clings to these little bits of information at night, that holds onto them and remembers what things were like before you left Homura.

You tell that part to shut up a lot.

Sometimes you want to snap at Tatara, to make a quip about how the Red King must be doing, because you know he’s burning out slowly because that’s all kings know how to do, and even Tatara isn’t going to be able to hold him back forever. But every time you run into him, Anna is with him, and even with how much you hate Homura, you don’t want to make a 10-year-old girl cry. So you bottle it up, even as you watch Mikoto’s Weismann level rise higher and higher, slowly, even as Tatara tries to keep him from turning into nothing more than ash.

So you let him speak, sometimes, and ignore him and pretend not to hear because it almost seems like he needs to tell you this too, needs to pretend like things might still be even a fraction of the way to normal. And if that little part of you that begs you to just talk to Misaki shuts up for a little bit when you get these little tidbits, that’s just a bonus.

 

—

 

On a morning you won’t allow yourself to remember but refuse to forget, one of the alphabet squad Blues wakes you up at four in the morning. You stumble out of bed and grumble, cursing the gods of every pantheon and swearing in a way that’s so reminiscent of Misaki that you stop talking.

You throw open your door and your world shatters for a heartbeat. Benzai tells you that a red clansman has been killed, and time stops for you. You’re frozen, staring ahead and desperate to know who it was because it can’t be him, it can’t be him, Misaki can’t die because you have to be the one to kill him only just so that he’ll look at you and only you again, and - you take a deep breath, locking your emotions away before they can get the best of you. You ask who it was, and when Benzai says it was Totsuka, a million thoughts run through your head that are so overpowered by relief that your legs almost give out.

Left alone in your room to get ready, you realize three things. The first is that you can finally go head-to-head with Misaki again, because you know Homura and you know that they’re already out for blood. The second is that Anna is going to be inconsolable, and that could prove problematic for controlling her strain powers. The third realization comes to you with a breath of fear and you’ve never liked fire but you know that you’re about to deal with a lot of it soon, because if Anna is inconsolable, Mikoto is going to burn the entire world down to get revenge.

Maybe that’s why you were scared of him. Because you recognized that part of yourself that looked at Misaki the way Mikoto looked at Tatara. And if Misaki was gone, nothing would be in your way as you destroyed the world with your bare hands.

Of course, you’re never going to tell him that. He wouldn’t understand.

... It’s strange, you suppose. There’s a little shred of grief buried under the sheer relief of knowing it wasn’t Misaki. It’s not surprising, because Tatara was one of the only people in Homura that you had a grudging respect for, even with all of his invasive questions and nagging and constant pulls to get you to talk to Misaki. You absently rub at the burned tattoo.

When you left Homura, Anna asked if you wanted to say anything to him. You said no. There wasn’t anything to say.

There still isn’t.

You can’t worry about that now. You know Homura too well, you know that they aren’t going to rest until Tatara’s murderer is nothing more than ash, name forgotten in the wind.

 

—

 

You run into Misaki and that big fool, Kamamoto, at the school island. And, of course, you need to challenge him to a fight.

It’s the first time you’ve felt alive in a while.

He calls you monkey and it’s laced with vitriol, none of the gentle teasing that you’ve heard in his voice before, and it hurts a part of you that hasn’t seen the sun in years. You ignore it like you always do, because you decided long ago with the death of your father that his little nickname for you meant nothing and would always mean nothing.

You shrug it off and laugh, because that’s what your role is, and that’s what will keep his eyes focused on you instead of anyone else, which is what you always wanted anyways.

There’s something... off, about Misaki. Not in his fighting, although even though you pretend otherwise you’re shocked that he doesn’t dodge the knives you throw at him. When he comes back at you, you pay a little bit more attention, and now you can see the problems.

Misaki has bags under his eyes like you’ve never seen, and there’s an undercurrent of nervous energy running through him that keeps his fingers trembling.

You spare one glance toward Kamamoto, standing on the sidelines like you and Misaki ordered, and his worried gaze tracking Misaki tells you enough. Misaki was the one who found Tatara, you remember, and you remember how Misaki acted when he thought you were going to go off to some fancy high school (as if you were ever interested in that).

He hasn’t been sleeping. He probably hasn’t been eating, either, but with no Tatara around to give you continuous Misaki-updates every time your paths crossed, you don’t know if that’s fact or assumption.

You snap out of thinking when his fist connects with your face and you back up, only getting a second to collect yourself before he’s back at you. After that it’s a blur of blue and red, dodging and weaving and striking as Misaki refuses to give up, until Awashima shows up and verbally shoves you both back to your respective sides.

Misaki walks away and you don’t glance back at him as he leaves. You don’t want to. You saw enough during your fight, and you hate looking at Misaki when his eyes aren’t burning into yours.

 

—

 

Mikoto Suoh dies less than two weeks after Tatara. You stand on the bridge and look down at Homura, mourning as they stand on the edge of the coast.

Once upon a time, before everything went to shit, Tatara called you self-destructive. It wasn’t - it wasn’t mean by any sense, because you still aren’t sure if Tatara even has it in him to be mean to any member of Homura, but it made you think, which you didn’t appreciate. Conversations with Tatara usually ended up like that. It’s a bit funny, though, because if you’re self-destructive than what the hell was he? He knew this was coming and didn’t do a thing, and now Homura has lost their heart and their head in less than two weeks.

Self-destructive. Maybe that’s why Tatara had recognized it in you that one time. Like to like, and all that. Tatara always made you feel... too visible. Too easily read. You hated it.

You stare down and see tears on Misaki’s face as his fist pumps the sky, and you think distantly that the last time you saw him shed legitimate tears like that was when you both were saved from the Greens during the surprise party at Bar HOMRA. When you thought you both were unbreakable and going to run the world together someday. Stupid fucking kids who never knew any better, who had to grow up sometime.

Your chest twinges, then burns, then feels like someone lit a flare under your skin. A red square rises from the mangled and scarred Homura tattoo on your chest and joins the others in the sky, a symbol for Mikoto (and, a final gift from Mikoto to Anna).

You grimace and shove your collar over your tattoo, finally letting Misaki fall from your gaze as you turn back to your clan.

 

—

 

You’re 20 years old when your phone rings and the number flashing on the screen is one that you’ll never be able to forget.

You still pretend to, answering it like it’s a stranger on the other end when really it’s the one person who you’ve never been able to even fathom completely cutting out of your life.

He takes that about as well as you expect him to, and you ignore his yelling and posturing until his voice goes soft and broken, and you remember how you haven’t seen any Homura members out and about except for Kamamoto, that Kusanagi is off in Germany on a secret mission that Awashima thinks you don’t know about.

You hang up on him, because a broken Misaki won’t be as fun as an angry Misaki. You do send him the information. Anna might be Homura, but she’s still a child, and you remember all too well how it felt to be alone and scared, with no one to protect you. Plus, you don’t mind Anna. You don’t necessarily like her, because she’s too perceptive and catches too much and you just know that she was looking inside your head every time you glanced at Misaki and saw him holding court with the rest of Homura and not looking at you. But, you’re not going to let her be hurt (like you were) and, besides, you really do like the idea of Misaki owing you a favor that you can collect on later.

He also gave you some information about the masked assailant (not a ninja by any stretch of the imagination, whatever your captain thinks); the Scepter 4 cells have been a little too empty lately, and you know Munakata is going to be very happy to receive this intel indeed.

 

—

 

On Christmas Eve, everything changes. Munakata comes up to you before the mission and asks you to accept a new one. He gives you time to think about it, but you don’t think you need any. After all, this is what you were on the Blues for. Munakata wanted a secret weapons handler and an informant, and your quote-unquote job description leaves you just enough wiggle room to be dangerous. It’s intentional, you know that, because Munakata needs a piece outside the chess board that he can control fully.

Regardless, you agree to the terms and lay out a plan of attack - it’s a just-in-case more than anything, but you’re intelligent enough to understand that if Munakata is actually worried about this, then there’s something there.

Everything starts going to shit when Enomoto tells you that there’s another sword in the sky - the Grey Clan, Cathedral - their king never died. And then the plan fails. The Greens get the slate. The Silver King hasn’t come down from Mihashira Tower yet, Anna is injured, and your Captain is sitting in the van with bandages wrapped around his torso.

So you put the plan into play. Munakata (and you should have expected this, you should have, because he’s never wanted to let go of the upper hand) goes off script. Calls you a traitor, says you should be used to this, and the tattoo under your uniform burns. Your sword sticks into the side of the truck as you throw your coat on it, and that wasn’t in the script either but it’s definitely going to keep anyone from asking questions.

Munakata is hedging his bets, so you think it’s only fair if you do the same. You were supposed to just leave, to just head out and break out Douhan and convince her to give you her points in the game. But you veer off-course, and find yourself in the middle of half of Homura. Where Misaki is.

You tell Misaki to come and find you, because it’s the only thing you can say without exposing the mission to him and everyone else in Homura, everyone who has a big mouth and might blab to the wrong person. Maybe Misaki will understand, and maybe you’ll die alone in the basement of the Green’s HQ. It’s obvious he’s confused, and you don’t really have the faith in him to put the pieces together, but it’s all you can do to try and make sure you come out of this alive.

 

—

 

You didn’t want this mission to end in death but honestly, you’re not surprised that it’s going to. Munakata outlined the risks when he ran it by you and even Misaki would have understood that the risk didn’t outweigh the benefit; he also would have seen that the chance of you coming out alive of this was slim to none.

This really wasn’t worth the hazard pay, and Sukuna Goju is probably going to kill you, which is just adding insult to injury. Scepter 4’s hidden weapons master, killed so easily by a 12 year old kid who lives life like it’s a video game.

You hear a shout, so easily recognizable because you’ve lived with that voice and you’ve heard it in your dreams for the past couple of nights as you realized that this might actually be it for you.

Misaki actually came for you.

 

—

 

You’re twenty years old and for the first time in a while you don’t have magic licking under your fingertips anymore. There are some residual traces of the blue aura left inside of you, but they’ve been depleting quickly ever since the Slate was destroyed. The green aura fizzled out with its king, and you don’t miss it. The feel of electricity running over your skin was never one you wanted to get used to anyway. The red power is long gone too, although you can still sometimes feel a fire in your veins that’s eerily similar to how Mikoto Suoh’s power felt.

You run into Misaki in the park, and he actually believes you when you tell him that you didn’t know he was going to be here. You still have a bandage on your leg from where the knife almost sliced your femoral artery, but you’re able to hide the limp.

He buys a cola and you share it.

It’s - it feels like it did back in middle school, the two of you against the world, and even though there’s not really any threat anymore - finals, bullies, clans trying to murder each other - there’s still that desperate kiss of the two of you against it all on the wind.

When Misaki asks you to stay, you almost consider tearing off the blue coat and staying, a longing in your chest rising up so desperately it feels like it will jump out of your chest. But that’s not your role, that’s not who you’re supposed to be, so you swallow it and make a non-commital grunt. He asks you to go to his skateboarding competition, and you almost think how unfair it is for him to be happy while you’re still apart, but then you see the smile in his eyes and you remember that you’re not supposed to hate each other anymore, and let the feeling go.

You leave without promising anything, but Misaki tosses you the last bit of the cola you got to share, and as you walk away, the cold condensation of the glass cools your palm in the summer heat.

You remember what everyone - Tatara, Misaki, Munakata, Seri, even Hidaka - had said about effort and that similar bullshit, so with a deep breath you call your Captain, requesting some time off in the future, and refuse to give it to his inquisitive questions about what it’s going to be used for. You know and Misaki will know, and that’s really all that matters.


End file.
